The Process

BASIC PROCESS (Lori's analysis):
Homestudy (4-8 weeks), Country Paperwork (called a Dossier and takes up to 5 months but can get started near the end of the homestudy), Referral of child (this is where you get matched up with your child and depends on the kind of child you're looking for and the country), waiting for the government to approve, and then travel to get your child.
So to get started you need a homestudy. You can't really start your home study until you have picked an agency (because some agencies do their own homestudies and others work with local organizations to do them), and you can't pick an agency without picking a country. You have to pick a country in order to begin the paperwork process according to that countries specifics. Agencies only work with certain countries (often more than one though), so it became evident that we have to narrow down the agency and country pretty quickly. This is something I was not expecting to have to do so soon and am not happy about it. I want more time, but I keep reminding myself that everything is in God's perfect timing.
A lot of countries are not an option for us because of various qualifications, travel requirements, length of wait, etc. We have narrowed it down....at least ..I think....well, everyday that I think I've decided on 1 or 2, then something else comes up that I reconsider and add to my mania of researching. I did for now, find an agency that does more than one of the countries we are interested in. This way we can start the application process with them and still have a little time (only a couple weeks) to decide on country. I went ahead and contacted the organization here in the Springs to expedite the home study process that works with that agency. I feel comforted at this point. Turns out this home study organization works with many agencies so if we decide in the next few days on a different agency, we have likely still began on the correct path.

I think when I started this journey, I thought that I would be able to be matched up to kids from all countries and we would know the country our child was in just by being matched to them. It doesn't work that way at all. As I mentioned, you have to apply your paperwork according to that particular country. There isn't some huge country data base that each country uses to match to parents. In fact, each agency usually works with specific orphanages or organizations to match families. If each Dossier didn't cost hundred of dollars, I might now have wanted to apply to more than one country and see what came first.
Because each agency works with particular orphanges, that is why there can be a wait. Kinda depends on the children that are currently available within the orphange or orphanges when your paperwork is finalized. If one is available, you get a "referral" right away. If not, you wait. If there is another family ahead of you on the wait list, the match would go to them first, you wait. It looks like we are in for a minimum of 10 months to a year wait for us. Could be longer, could be only a bit shorter. Patience is not one of the attributes I was gifted with.
I know some of you may be familiar with this process and don't care to hear me going on and on.  I figured some of you might be interested so sorry to bore those that don't care and just wanted to hear the main details.

We have a long road ahead of us and we ask for your prayers. To guide us in all decisions and never doubt Jeremiah 29:11.